


Only Ashes Left Behind

by Beleriandings



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-01
Updated: 2013-10-01
Packaged: 2017-12-28 04:23:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the Dagor Bragollach, Maglor's Gap was lost, and Maglor lived afterwards at Himring with his brother Maedhros.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Ashes Left Behind

Macalaurë fell to his knees on the blistering hot dust, his palms flat on the ground, doubled over and coughing. The dragon had caught them off guard, already fighting their way across the scorched plains, through an endless tide of orcs that swarmed like black spiders. Then the dust storm had hit. He craned his neck desperately, his smarting, tear-filled eyes trying to pierce the grey-brown ash that seemed to fill the air, coating the inside of his throat and tearing at his lungs. There was a roaring in his ears, and a sense of urgency tugged at the corners of his dazed mind. Where was the dragon? Was anyone else left alive? His hands seared with pain, and he raised them before his eyes. The soot-caked palms were burned, the exposed flesh slick and shiny and beginning to blister angrily. (Where were his gloves? Must have lost them, he thought vaguely. His memory was fragmenting, like a cracked mirror.) He tried to call out, but his throat burned too, and he felt as though his mouth were filled with hot sand. The only sound that came was a strangled, buzzing yelp. Fires burned on the ground all about where he knelt, bleeding oily black smoke into the air. The heat around him was like a physical mass, thick and crushing down on his body, willing him to fall and not get up again. He tried to stand, but his legs felt like lead weights, and he grimaced at a stab of pain in his side from what was almost certainly a broken rib. Perhaps that had happened when he had fallen from his horse. (Had he even been on his horse? He couldn’t remember anymore, a choking darkness spreading across his recent memories.)

He was suddenly aware of the pressure of the cheek guards of his helmet against his face, the metal beginning to heat up unpleasantly. He could feel the skin of his cheeks starting to burn too, and, panicking slightly, he tugged the helmet from his head, his clumsy, raw fingers slipping a little as they scrabbled convulsively at the hot metal. He threw it to the ground. Every small motion seemed draining, as he struggled to draw enough of the hot, acrid-smelling air into his lungs to stay alive. He was going to die, he realised with a sudden, terrible clarity. He could not see more than a step or two before him in the gloom, and he was too weak to move far, his muscles starved of air. And if the dragon returned… he grimaced, wondering if any of his men had survived. The flames rushed towards him, to lick at his knees like living, hungry things. A blackness began to close over him, but with a colossal, desperate effort of will he dragged himself unsteadily to his feet.

It was not a moment too soon, for suddenly the misshapen silhouette of an orc loomed towards him out of the murk, hate-filled face twisted with a wordless battle cry, a curved scimitar raised above its head to attack. For a moment Macalaurë’s mind spiralled, panicking, knowing that he could not defend himself, not in this state. Then he felt his muscles working of their own accord, pain shooting through his arms as he summoned the very last strength he had to draw his twin swords. He met the scimitar with the swords crossed, the shock of the blow jolting through his whole body. He drew a ragged, painful breath as he braced himself to parry the next blow, wondering if it would be his last. The dark, indistinct shape of the creature before him raised the scimitar in both hands, high above its head, as Macalaurë’s knees gave way again, the roiling smoke and heat choking him, suffocating. The moment seemed to stretch out as his mind clouded, black spots slipping across his vision like oil on water. He felt curiously detached, as if he were watching the scene from a long way off, even as he felt his fingers loosen and the swords slip from his grasp. But the sound they should have made when they hit the ground was drowned amid the roaring. The blade seemed frozen above him, the crudely forged, blackened metal nevertheless glinting with a keen and deadly edge. He tilted his head back defiantly, his father’s face suddenly swimming into the forefront of his oxygen-starved mind. Then the face twisted in pain, and it was crumbling to ash, only to be replaced by a hunched, coughing, red-haired figure, and suddenly the ground beneath him was no longer blackened scree, but planks of white wood, its tilting coming not from his own fleeing consciousness but from the listing of the burning ship… but no, that wasn’t right. He hadn’t seen that, it must be a false memory, or some trickery of the smoke and flames. At least, he thought, looking up at the towering column of muscle and fury before him, he would not be the next to die by fire. If songs were to be sung in later days, he thought, then they could not say that those of the House of Fëanáro had burned, one by one. In his current strangely calm and dreamlike state, he felt almost guilty for depriving the faceless bards of the future of an aesthetically pleasing symmetry.

Suddenly there was a cry, and a staccato pounding of hoofbeats. And then a large, white shape was looming out of the smoke from the right, barrelling into the orc. A sword was scything out in a bright arc, like pale fire cutting through the black haze. The horseman neatly decapitated the orc in a single singing stroke, the head flying through the air to land on the blackened ground several feet away, even as the body crumpled and the cruel scimitar fell, with a sickening thud and a muffled clatter.

He squinted at the shape, and then widened his eyes, although they itched and burned as the dry heat evaporated his tears. It was a figure riding a white horse, and as he watched, it dismounted hastily and hurried towards him. Its head seemed to be curiously misshapen, and it took him a moment to realise with his blurred sight that it wore a wide swathe of dark cloth over its face. A good idea in this smoke, he thought dully. The figure started to unwrap the cloth, and dimly he realised that it was using only its left hand. The wrapping came away, and a fall of something bright and red spilled out. More flames? Was this some new demon sent to finish him off? No, he realised, the red was only hair. The figure knelt down towards him, and he felt a flood of relief as he recognised a very familiar face, although it was tense and pale now, apart from a narrow soot-blackened band of skin framing reddened grey eyes.

“ _M-Maitimo?_  Is that you?”

“Macalaurë!” His voice was thick with relief. “You’re alive. I thought for a moment that I had come too late - ”

Macalaurë tried to speak, but instead he burst into hacking coughs, his lungs contracting painfully. Quickly his brother drew out a water skin that hung over his shoulder on a leather strap, darting a quick glance behind him to make sure they were not in any immediate danger. Deftly undoing the seal with his left hand while supporting Macalaurë with his right arm, he put the water skin to Macalaurë’s cracked and bleeding lips, tilting his head back. The water was warm, and he choked a little on it. But it soothed the burning at the back of his throat a fraction, and in that moment it seemed better than the most delicious wine served at any royal feast in Tirion or Alqualondë. He felt a little strength start to return to his limbs, enough at least for him to pull himself shakily to his feet, leaning heavily on his brother’s arm. Maitimo was now using the rest of the water to dampen the cloth, which he began to wrap around Macalaurë’s head instead. The damp fabric felt stifling, lying heavy and rough against his burnt skin. But at least it cut out some of the ash and smoke.

“Maitimo” he coughed out the name, distracted. “The Gap is lost. We couldn’t hold it. The dragon - ” his voice was muffled by the folds of the fabric. “I – I’m sorry.”

“Hush. I know. I know. Some of the survivors made it to Himring.” Maitimo’s eyes burned. “But I’ll be damned if I’m going to lose you too. Come on.” His brows crumpled in determination. The long, jagged scar that ran above his right eye and over the bridge of his nose was picked out in soot, Macalaurë saw, the pale silver now engrained with black. He started to steer Macalaurë towards his horse, and to help him climb into the saddle.

 _I don’t deserve to be saved. Especially not by him._ Suddenly Macalaurë was seized by a new wave of weakness, overcome again by the cloying smoke even as the thought crashed over him. He stumbled, and would have fallen if his brother had not caught him. “I – I can’t - ”

Maitimo gritted his teeth, his eyes suddenly far away as if seized by a painful memory. “Yes you can. Come on.” His tone left no room for argument.

With great effort, Macalaurë lifted his foot to the stirrup, and dragged himself into the saddle, tipping sideways a little, only to be steadied as Maitimo mounted behind him. Maitimo spurred his horse forward, holding the reigns in his left hand, his right arm clasped protectively across Macalaurë’s dented breastplate. But it was too late, thought Macalaurë. He could feel his consciousness slipping from his grasp, the darkness spreading again over his vision even as he tried to cling to his last shreds of awareness. He could feel smoke in his eyes as his head tipped forward, and the feeling of hoofbeats below him, and he could hear Maitimo’s voice at his ear, although he couldn’t distinguish the words. They almost seemed to be flying across the scorched, burning plain now, Maitimo desperately urging his horse onwards. But it was no good, thought Macalaurë. The dull haze of ash had no end. Then the hot, whispering darkness closed over him, and he knew no more.

\-----

He awoke to silence. It pressed into his ears as he lay with his eyes closed, his senses slowly reassembling themselves. He was lying on something soft, and a gentle warmth seemed to envelope him, quite unlike the aggressive, dry heat that seemed to strip the very flesh from the bones. Was he in a bed? For a moment he had no recollection of the recent past, and felt a lurch of disorientation. He opened his eyes, staring up a high stone ceiling, plain and unadorned. He wondered vaguely if he was dreaming. The world felt pleasantly golden and hazy. In the dim light of what he was fairly certain was early morning, he could see smooth, pale yellow stone above him, and a simple carved cornice that seemed familiar, but he could not quite place. There was a window beside the bed where he lay, the heavy curtains parted a little to allow a narrow beam of rust-coloured dawn sunlight to enter the room. For a moment he was content to watch the dust motes dance in the light, his mind floating untethered, temporarily free of fully-formed thoughts. The beginnings of a tune began to form as he watched the bright points of dust spiralling on their chaotic paths, still half-asleep. He closed his eyes again as the tune expanded, a string of bright bubbles in sparkling wine, all thoughts of trying to remember his recent past momentarily forgotten. He opened his mouth to sing a few experimental notes. But he was quickly jolted back into reality as he felt his voice crack, his throat and lungs exploding with pain. With the pain came clarity and full wakefulness, and then memory, sharp and terrible. And with memory came awareness of even more pain, a dull throbbing in his head and a thousand small aches, every muscle stiff and sore.

He raised his hands to his face. His fingers felt thick and clumsy, and he saw that both hands were tightly bandaged with clean white gauze. He sat up, awkwardly, crying out a little at the sharp pain in his side. His head pounded and spun as if he was waking up after a night of heavy drinking, and he could taste blood at the back of his mouth as well as an unpleasant, bitter edge of something chemical. _Water._  He groaned a little, twisting around until he spotted a jug of water and a glass on the bedside table. Clumsily, he poured himself a full cup and gulped it greedily, splashing some onto the bed cover because of his haste and his bandaged hands. He poured another. He felt as though every drop had been drawn from his body, as if he were one of the botanical samples that Maitimo had collected when they were young, carefully drying them out between the pages of books. With the thought of Maitimo came the realisation that this must be Himring. And suddenly he knew exactly where he was. This was the room he had stayed in many times before, the room he had occasionally thought of as  _his_  when he had visited in better days.

He sat still for a while, thinking over everything that had happened, trying to fill in the gaps in his memory as he waited for the pain in his head to fade. He hesitantly ran his bandaged fingers over his face, wincing as the fabric brushed against the raw patches where the exposed metal cheek guards of his helmet had burned him. His eyes prickled unpleasantly, and he squeezed them shut, pressing the heels of his bandaged hands into them until stars exploded in the pulsing red behind his eyelids. He listened. The only sounds were distant clattering footsteps against the paving stones and the muffled voices of a few guards in the courtyard outside. It must still be very early. Himring was usually bustling with all the life of a small, extremely compact town. Where was his brother? He thought he could guess. Feeling a little stronger, he gingerly pulled back the blankets and swung his legs onto the ground. He realised he was dressed in a clean tunic and trousers that looked as though they might belong to Maitimo, and he smiled wanly, thinking back on a whole childhood filled with borrowed clothes. The sleeves were just a little too long for him, and they trailed down over his bandaged hands. Someone had placed a pair of soft shoes beside his bed, and he slipped his feet into them and stood, leaning against the bed as he reeled slightly. He crossed the room to the door and padded on soundless feet through the narrow hallway, illuminated by pale lampstones mounted in brackets on the stone walls.

He knew this hallway well, as the rooms reserved for visiting family and dignitaries all faced onto it. But now he made for the end of the corridor, where there was an arched wooden door with a cast-iron handle set on the left-hand side.

He nudged open the unlocked door, and began to climb the spiral staircase of Maitimo’s own turret. As he climbed, he counted the floors he knew off by heart, to distract himself from the twists of pain that shot through his still-stiff muscles. Study for greeting guests, library, bedroom, private study. It was here that he paused, listening. Not a sound came from within. He pushed open the door and stepped inside, wondering at the same time if his brother was truly not here. He stared around the room, taking in the bookshelves, the desk in front of the window, the covered lampstones in the brackets on the walls, and the glass doors onto the balcony, where he had expected to find Maitimo all along. Sure enough, through the glass he could see his brother’s silhouette against the red sky of early morning, looking out towards the north. Without turning, Maitimo spoke softly.

“Welcome back, Macalaurë.”

Macalaurë crossed the room and stepped out on the balcony, placing himself shoulder to shoulder with Maitimo.

“Gone are the days when I could sneak up on you unnoticed, apparently.” He coughed a little, his voice still husky and painful.

His brother’s face remained forward, as still and impassive as marble. They stood together, looking out over the Marches towards Lothlann, and what had once been the rolling green expanse of Ard-galen beyond. Now it was a scorched grey waste, under the endless sky. There were no clouds now, but a pall of brown-grey haze still hung ominously over the horizon in all directions, dying the light of the rising sun, just above the eastern horizon, an unnaturally dark red. The cold north wind whipped up tongues of dust as they watched. That same wind blew on their faces, stinging Macalaurë’s eyes with both the cold and the acrid tang of smoke, and lifting their hair so that it streamed out behind them. For the first time, Macalaurë realised that his hair had been cut at some point since his last memory. It was now no longer than his jawline. He ran his fingers through it distractedly, surprised he had not noticed until now. Maitimo turned to look at him. “How are you?” his voice was superficially steady, but Macalaurë could not miss the almost imperceptible waver that betrayed Maitimo’s anxiousness.

“Well enough to guess that I might find you here. Have you been out here all night?”

Maitimo glanced away, which was all the answer that Macalaurë needed to confirm his suspicions. Maitimo looked back at him intently, his voice solicitous.

“Are you still in pain? The healers gave you something to make you sleep, a poppy infusion to numb the pain and to help you heal faster, but…” he broke off, his pale eyes momentarily looking through Macalaurë and his face twisting into a slight grimace. He shook his head. “Anyway. It could certainly have turned out much worse. You were - ” Maitimo’s words came in a rush. “I mean – I cannot hide the fact that… I thought there was a very real chance that I would lose you. You – inhaled a lot of smoke, and when you blacked out, I thought - ” Macalaurë was alarmed at the hitch in Maitimo’s voice, and quickly caught his brother in a hug, breathing in the candlewax and firelight scent of the hair that tickled his face.

“Maitimo. I am fine. I am not even in any pain.”

Maitimo pulled away from him, smiling dryly. “Macalaurë, I appreciate the sentiment, but that’s the biggest lie I’ve heard from you in a long time. You nearly died of suffocation, you had three broken ribs, you were suffering from severe dehydration, and your hands, arms and neck were seriously burned where your armour was in contact with your skin. The healers tell me you have made great progress in the last three days, but please don’t try to spare my feelings by telling me you’re not in any pain.”

Macalaurë winced. He should have known better, he realised, than to try to hide it from Maitimo. Maitimo, of all people, the one who knew pain the most intimately.

“They said you would not be able to speak properly or sing for a while. The small, sharp particles of the ash…” Maitimo tailed off, his face contorting as if he were the one in pain. “But you will heal. Your hands, too. You may be able to play the harp again soon, so I am told.” He held Macalaurë’s left hand gently in his own, turning it over as if to check the bandages. Macalaurë looked away, suddenly feeling a little sick with guilt.

“But what right do I have to get away unharmed?” he burst out, his lips prickling with the words, tasting their bitterness. “When so many are dead? What was I _for_ , but to hold the Gap and write my songs? But now my lands are lost, and what need have the dead of music?” He looked up at Maitimo, slightly alarmed himself by the sudden anger in his voice, anger at he knew not what. He saw a frown gathering on his brother’s face, and immediately felt even worse. “I am grateful that you saved me” he backtracked quickly. “Thank you, Maitimo. But I failed you. I did not deserve it.”

The frown on Maitimo’s face deepened. “There was no  _deserved_. You are my brother, and you needed my help. I did not see it as a choice.”

The silence stretched out between them, long and brittle and uncomfortable, at these words. Maitimo spoke hastily. “I did not mean - ” he drew a steadying breath. “Macalaurë, I forgave you long ago” he said quietly. “But I, unlike you, _know_  what happens if we lose. If I lose you. As I said, I did not see it as a choice. It was a different situation.”

They turned back to the grey landscape before them, the bleak, ragged hills around Himring turned to the colour of dried blood in the dawn light. He could almost smell them.

“Three days, you said?” asked Macalaurë at last. “What has happened since… since then?” He forced himself to give voice to the question, although he was not sure he wanted to know the answer.

Maitimo closed his eyes, passing his hand across them briefly before answering. “Dorthonion is lost.” He stared out towards the indistinct mass of hills visible through the haze on the western horizon. “Aikanáro and Angaráto are slain, in all probability. Some of their people made it here. Very few. One of their men told me the news, as he lay dying, choking on his own blood. Not someone I knew, but he was too badly burned to recognise, so perhaps…” Maitimo was clearly struggling to keep his face blank, his eyes flicking involuntarily towards Macalaurë’s bandaged hands. “I never found out his name.”

Macalaurë was silent, struggling to absorb this, almost wishing he had not asked. But it was no good now. “And… our brothers? What news of them?”

“Very little, because I stopped sending out messengers and scouts when they stopped returning. Himlad has fallen, but Tyelko and Curvo are rumoured to have escaped. But where they are now, I do not know. Carnistir has fled from Thargelion, along with what is left of his people - ”

“I bet he hated to do that.”

Maitimo almost smiled. “I am certain of it. Yet with any luck he will have found Ambarussa and they will have aid from the Laiquendi. But really that’s only speculation.” His face darkened again. “Supply lines have been cut, messages are not getting through, and what little news we have may well be lies, spread by the enemy for his own purposes.  _We_  may as well be the ones who are besieged now. Himring’s stores of food and metals are running dangerously low already.”

“Could we not break the siege?” Macalaurë asked doubtfully. “With your people and mine perhaps we could even retake the Gap?”

“Macalaurë, we barely have enough strength between us to hold Himring, should it be attacked. Great numbers have died, in battle, or later, of their burns. Refugees are trickling in, some of them escaped thralls from Angband. But many are still under the enemy’s control, although even they do not know it. I have had to become used to sending them away, lest they…  _turn_.” Maitimo’s face was hard, but Macalaurë could see the effort of will that it cost his brother to keep it like that. Quickly he cast around for a new topic of conversation, something that would break the subtle tension that the mention of thralls of Angband had created. He voiced the first thought that came to mind.

“What of Nolofinwë, and Findekáno? Surely they still hold Hithlum? The west, at least, cannot have fallen. Nolofinwë would help you, send you aid, if you asked it of him. Have you had any word…?”

Immediately he realised that it was entirely the wrong thing to say, and tailed off, staring at the floor and coughing a little.

“Nothing” said Maitimo shortly, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose distractedly. “I have at least heard  _rumour_  of our brothers. But Findekáno’s messages have ceased, and… and all I can do is assume that it is because they are not getting through.” He looked upwards. “I wish…” But whatever he had been about to say, he seemed to think better of it. He frowned, as if trying to regain his composure. “Anyway. I trust Findekáno and Nolofinwë to hold Hithlum until long after Himring has fallen, and the rest of the lands are in ruin. But for now, all we can do is wait. You will be here for a while, I would guess, whether you will it or not. I’m afraid that for the foreseeable future, you’re stuck here, with me.”

“I did not mean - ”

Maitimo sighed. “I know.”

They lapsed back into silence, and Macalaurë listened glumly to the sound of the wind rattling the ropes against the flagpoles that held the many banners of the house of Fëanáro in the courtyard below. It was a sharp, salty sound, a bright slapping that put him in mind of a ship at sea. It was not a particularly comfortable thought. And as he looked out over the flat, ashen expanse, he almost felt that they  _were_  on the prow of a ship, small and isolated and so very fragile against the fearsome might of the ocean of ash. The red dawn light could almost be blood on the water…  _no_. He was letting his imagination get away from him, he knew. He thought of his younger brothers somewhere out there, perhaps dead or wounded, and he felt a sudden stab of frustration at his own uselessness.   
“I just never thought…” he found himself unsure of quite what he had been planning to say. “I knew we were very much still at war. Rationally speaking, I had no illusions about what we were here for. But I allowed myself to hope that the peace would last. And maybe I even thought things would get… well,  _better_. Somehow. Instead of worse.” Even he could hear the bitterness in his voice again, the self-pity. “I was quite hopelessly idealistic, I suppose. I am rapidly being cured of that now though, along with my burns and my broken bones.”

Maitimo said nothing.

“You never thought like that though, did you? You always knew…  _this_ … was coming.” It was not a question, but it was answered.

“Yes” said Maitimo simply, without looking at him, lifting his jaw a little in defiance. Macalaurë did not know what to say, so he did not say anything, and simply stared out to the north, the two of them side by side. But as he looked, an unpolished new melody began to well up to the surface of his mind, coalescing into a rising, rough-edged, heart-twisting thing. He suddenly longed to stand on the brink of the tower and sing, to let his voice rise up without words, to hold the darkness back in the most instinctive and visceral way he knew. But no, he realised. For now, at least, the smoke and the roaring flames had robbed him of his voice.

All he could do, all any of them could do, was wait.


End file.
